Nadene Goldfoot
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| Samaritans During Passover |
Israel's 10 tribes of the northern part separated themselves from Judah, the largest and most southern tribe of the 12 Tribes of Israel after King Solomon died in 920 BCE and his son,
Rehoboam took the kingship from 933 BCE to 917 BCE.
A committee from the tribe of Ephraim had gone to speak with the new king about lowering their taxes and expectation of their free labor in working on the Temple and other building projects of Solomon and
Rehoboam wasn't going to change a thing. So the 10 Tribes pulled out of the union and chose their own king and capital from their own population and northern land.
Their king was now Jeroboam from 933 to 912 BCE..
The next king was Nadab from 912 to 911 BCE.
King Baasha was their 3rd from 911 to 888 BCE
King Elah was the next one from 888 to 887 BCE
King Zimri only lasted a short while in 887 BCE
1. King Omri was king from 887 to 876 BCE, an 11 year reign. So far only 57 years had passed since King Solomon had died.
They finally chose their capital to be Samaria (Shomron) founded in 880 BCE by King Omri. It was located on a hill that they bought from Shemer. The site was about 7 miles northwest of Shechem (Nablus) and was on an isolated elevation dominating a wide countryside. The city took up 25 acres of land.
25 Acres = 0.0390625 Square Miles. It had an acropolis (an upper fortified part of an ancient Greek city) with a casemate wall (fortified position or chamber or an armored enclosure on a warship from which guns are fired through embrasures) within which was the royal palace in an Assyrian style which shows that they already had connections with the Assyrians by then. It had an inscribed ostraca that were found by excavators in its store-rooms and also ivory inlays recalled the IVORY HOUSE built by
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| Jezebel |
2. King Ahab who was the next king from 876 BCE to 853 BCE. Son of Omri, his wife was Jezebel who introduced Baal worship into Israel, and a fierce struggle started between the royal family and the prophets headed by Elijah.
3. The next king was Ahaziah who also reigned in 853.
4. King Jehoram then ruled from 853 to 843, a 10 year reign.
This was the end of settled conditions that were the history of the HOUSE OF OMRI's rule.
1. King Jehu ruled from 843 to 816 BCE.
2. King Jehoahaz ruled from 816 to 800 BCE, 16 years.
3. King Jehoash ruled from 800 to 785 BCE
4. King Jeroboam II ruled from 785 to 745 BCE
5. King Zechariah ruled in 744 BCE
This was the end of the HOUSE OF JEHU. The kingdom had reached its greatest power during Jehu's house. They had conducted successful campaigns against neighboring states, and enjoyed much luxury. At one time they had extended its sway as far as the Gulf of Akaba. Then its strength was sapped because of their constant warfare with the kingdom of Damascus, which was SYRIA. Both Israel and Syria fell before the advancing power of ASSYRIA.
Ahab, King of Israel, away from Jerusalem, gave up his religion when he became entranced in the famous Jezebel and because of her, allowed Baal worship into Israel-idol worship including a pantheon of gods. It was the opposing belief to Judaism!
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Samaritans
Descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh
and outsiders from Babylon (Cutheans) who were colonists
brought in by Assyria's Sargon II |
Samaria,
the capital of Israel, was then captured by Sargon II in 721 BCE and this ended the history of the kingdom of Israel.
Sargon II had taken away 27,290 Israelites They happened to be some of the most influential and important leaders of their communities. The religious life of the kingdom of Israel was on a relatively low level. Part of the reason for this was being away from Jerusalem. It was for this reason that the policy of its first rulers was to set up sanctuaries locally in order to divert their subjects from Jerusal
em, a deliberate attempt to keep the 2 state status and not need Jerusalem anymore.
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| Amos the Prophet |
Only a minority of the biblical prophets such as
Hosea and
Amos worked in the northern kingdom.
The Book of Kings gives lengthy accounts of
Elijah and
Elisha's endeavors to check idolatry and social injustice, though, so they knew what was going on.
Some of its traditions were preserved afterwards by the new SAMARITANS who had been brought to the land by this conqueror who had resettled it with
Cutheans, the people of Babylon. The Cutheans now intermingled with the remnants of the former population of Israelites, for all had not become captives. This mixture of people, as they most likely intermarried, became the ancestors of the SAMARITANS (Shomeronim) . We still have a handful of Samaritans living in Israel today. They call themselves the Bene Yisrael or Shomerim (the keepers) of the Law.
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| Babylonians leading away Judah |
Then came the Babylonian attack on Judah by Nebuchadnezzar
FROM 597 BCE TO 586 BCE WHERE THE PEOPLE WERE ALSO TAKEN TO BABYLON IN 586 BCE AND THE TEMPLE WAS DESTROYED.
The people who wished to return were given permission after 539 BCE.
That means they had remained deported for almost 50 years, 2 generations. These were the descendants of the original exiles who went back. They had been able to cherish their national and religious ideas in Persia so as to make possible the renewal of Jewish life when they returned to Jerusalem. The intellectual and spiritual life of Jerusalemites was extraordinarily rich. It was there that most of the canonical prophets carried on their activity, great parts of the Bible were composed and the essential traditions of Judaism were developed and preserved. Jerusalem Jews had not been politically known but that was not their purpose in life. Keeping the flame of Judaism was their goal. This was the difference between the nothern Israel group with Samaria as their capital and Judah with Jerusalem as their continued capital. The religion remained strong while they had Jerusalem to guide them.
The 5th century BCE is called the Persian Period. This is when the governor of Judah,
Nehemiah, who was serving as a cupbearer to the
Persian King Artaxerxes I (Ahasueros) , had heard of the terrible conditions in Jerusalem and asked permission from the king to go there. Artaxerxes said yes and appointed him as the governor of Judah (Tirshata) in 444 BCE. When he reached Jerusalem, he organized the repair of its walls--an activity that was finished in 52 days despite interference by neighboring people who tried to stop them. Then Nehemiah worked on social reforms including the observance of the Sabbath observance and the cancellation of debts owed by the poor.
The leaders of the people had to pledge themselves to maintain the Temple regulations and pay their tithes. The security of Jerusalem was ensured by arranging for a tenth of the people to live there. During the almost 50 years they had been away from Jerusalem, they kept up their practices. They were the people that had Jerusalem as their capital. They had heard stories from their grandparents about The Temple and Jerusalem and its importance to them.
During this Persian Period, Samaria became a Macedonian colony in 331 BCE.
John Hyrcanus took Samaria in about 107 BCE and razed it, burning it down. He was the son and successor of
Simon the Hasmonean and ruled from 135 to 104 BCE. The Hasmoneans were the family of Priests (with the Cohen gene of J1 or J2 that was a dynasty founded by Mattathias of Modiin. This is where Chanukah originated, our story of Judah the Hammerer.
Remember, Mattathias had 5 sons, Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan, Simon, John and Eleazar and they turned against the Greek Syrians who were trying to make us believe in their gods. It was later restored by the Roman, Pompey. King Herod renamed it Sebaste which is Greek for Augusta in honor of Augustus Caesar and the name has been preserved in the modern Sabastiya.
After 12 years, Nehemiah returned to Susa, Persia, but later went back to Jerusalem to renew his drastic work there. In 433 and 432 BCE, he took steps against mixed marriages and had Ezra to help back him up in this endeavor. His work was decisive in the rebuilding of Judah. Nehemiah's memoirs form the basis of the biblical Book of Nehemiah which is a continuation of the Book of Ezra.
Samaria is also used today meaning the entire northern region of the central highlands of Judea-Samaria in that it is Samaria today, what used to be northern Israel's land and capital.
It's amazing that some customs were preserved by some descendants of the northern tribes found today to be the Pashtuns who are now Muslims. They did not forget their roots that today are 2,740 years old already back to 721 BCE when their ancestors were taken away by force by the Assyrians.
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Abbas of Fatah (PA) on Left; Hamas on right Ismail Haniyeh
of Gaza.s That must be a Saudi leader on the far right. |
Who lives there today? In 1994, control of Areas 'A' (full civil and security control by the Palestinian Authority) and 'B' (Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control) were transferred by Israel to the Palestinian Authority, the former Fatah terrorists. The Palestinian Authority and the international community do not recognize the term "Samaria"; in modern times, the territory is generally known as part of the West Bank..
By the same token, we Jews who know our history do not
accept West Bank, a term created by the Jordanians, as the
name of the ancient land of northern Israel as it erases its history.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/ivory-palace-king-ahab-001576
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaria
